Scientists in the United States announced that they had taken a major step toward developing a “mosquito birth control” drug to curb the spread of malaria and other killer diseases blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths a year.
Recent discovery:
Researchers at the University of Arizona said they had discovered a protein unique to female mosquitoes which is critical for their young to hatch.
When the scientists blocked the protein, the females laid eggs with defective shells causing the embryos inside to die.
It’s an important discovery as developing drugs which targeted the protein could provide a way to reduce mosquito populations without harming beneficial insects such as bees.
The discovery could lead to the development of a new generation of insecticides in five years. These could then be applied onto bed nets.
Mosquitoes:
The Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes are one of the world’s deadliest animals, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) which has warned that global progress against malaria is stalling.
The Malaria disease infected around 216 million people in 2016, killing 445,000 of them, predominantly babies and young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Other diseases spread by mosquitoes include Zika, Chikungunya, yellow fever, West Nile virus and dengue, which has risen 30-fold in recent decades, according to the WHO.
However, the scientists did not want to eradicate the insect, which is a pollinator.
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